Never Post

Mike talks with Caio Almendra — writer, podcast host and organizer with Brazil’s Socialism and Liberty Party — about how the internet helped Lula de Silva win the Brazilian Presidential Election. Also, news!

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News

• Microsoft offers buyouts to 60k staffers
• Polymarket's paid quote-retweet esports program
• NY plans stronger sports betting regulation
• Signal won't comply with Canadian surveillance bill
• Google says surveillance is "problematic"
• AI music fraud scheme lands man in jail
• Social media's role in Brazil election race

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How The Brazilian Left Won An Election with the Internet

Find Caio

• Superstructure Podcast
• Intercept Brazil
• Brazilian Institute of Data Science
• Alameda Institute

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

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Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and distributed by Radiotopia.

For a special Halloween-themed feed drop, we've got something particularly spooky for you. Georgia was recently on Proxy with Yowei Shaw — another amazing Radiotopia show — to discuss an especially...creepy conundrum that plagues her digital life.

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Proxy with Yowei Shaw: Georgia Is Terrified of the Titanic

Georgia Hampton knows the Titanic can't hurt her. So why does just looking at a picture fill her with dread? And can she make the fear go away?

We find her a proxy who has spent decades helping people overcome their most irrational fears.

Get Georgia's internet rabbit holes and Martin's free guides to overcoming phobias in Proxy's newsletter. Sign up for free at https://proxyhq.org/.

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Proxy investigates the emotional mysteries that run our lives and world — sometimes by finding someone who gets it, sometimes by reporting from the emotions beat. Hosted by Yowei Shaw, former co-host and editorial lead of Invisibilia.

Follow the show so you don’t miss the next case.

Follow us on Instagram: @proxypodcast @yoweishaw

Get in touch at proxythepod@gmail.com

If you’re new, try: Bisexual Wife Guy, Yowei Can't Speak Bro, or Jane Doesn't Like Her Dogs.

Stephen Carlsen died in 2025. His family knew vaguely that he had worked on creating the file format TIFF, but it was his nephew, Nathan Carlsen, who kicked off a quest for the full story. This week, senior producer Hans Buetow talks with Nathan about his oral history project to document his uncle’s work, and we hear a fascinating conversation that Nathan had with Donovan Cameron, a First Nation GIS specialist who uses the TIFF in unexpected ways.

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Mr. Tiff

Find Nathan:

• Podcast: Inquisitive Pontification
• Original Reddit Post

Find Donovan:

• Website
• Documentary about Treaty 8 territories
• Living Proof by Terry Tobias

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

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It comes like this.

With tiny fingers screeching along the sidewalk screeching

screeching waiting

more than waiting.

It comes like this.

Writing a spasmotic gait of a

too quick operation speech

like the broke spoke of

wheels of things of

machine crossed human crossed with

machine metal grinding

grinding too

fast for its own function

It comes like this

Exceprt of FLOOD WATCHING by Elizabeth Fodaski

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Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and distributed by Radiotopia.

Originally published on April 9th, 2025, enjoy this episode in which Mike talks with psychotherapist Kurt White about how the internet may help us become ourselves.

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Any Rigid Idea About Yourself is a Prison

Kurt White

• Unravelling podcast
• LinkedIn

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Your business in this world

Your nakedness and terror

Your sanctity remains

the crucial battle

Dearly beyond

We are scattered here today

amongst commodities

This town isn’t big enough

for trust

Excerpt of The Concept of Dread by Pam Rehm

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure, and is distributed by Radiotopia

Georgia chats with Ludwig Hurtado of MOLD Magazine's "Food Futures" podcast about luxury grocery brands and the Highsnobiety “Status Report,” that says fashion is dead and food is in.

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Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/ for access to extended and bonus segments!

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The Tyranny of Taste

• Highsnobiety’s Status Economy Report
• Highsnobiety’s report on groceries specifically
• In the status economy, even groceries are a flex
•

Find Ludwig:

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Food Futures
• Play zine

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

spore print of mushroom in the retina, in my dreams

lens displacement in the multi-cellular dark

abyssal sound of leaves in the wind

rushing cloud dance before the sky closes in

except of It Is Difficult to Exaggerate the Importance of Mushrooms as Food, by Chris Torrance

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and distributed by Radiotopia.

Mike chats with Maia Woluchem and Cella Sum – co-authors of The AI Factory: Data Centers, Power, and Resistance in Late Industrial Pennsylvania – about the fight against Data Centers happening across Pennsylvania.

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Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/ for access to extended and bonus segments!

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• Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voicemail
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News Links

• ICE agents could be targeted by fake "tradwife" dating profiles
• Discord Launches Delayed Age Verification Measures
• OpenAI agent hacked Australian govt website
• Railroad work crews cut fiber optic cable, grounding flights
• Trump fires FAA air traffic control employees post-DC plane crash
• Did Trump’s FAA slash the staffing target for air traffic control?
• Bill would require blocking piracy sites
• Church groups ask Microsoft for 1% of data center costs
• PA town pushes back on data center despite $10k payout

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The AI Factory

• The AI Factory: Data Centers, Power, and Resistance in Late Industrial Pennsylvania
• Community-Centered AI Infrastructure Summit

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

These newfangled ghosts haunt by telephone and airwave. Acumen will finally languish in a good sense: type would bottle a new motto in live numbers and wine were they only not printers with so many thoughts to slip in media res or the thick of things at grasp root level up a slope on themselves. Our notion of productive labor becomes narrowed to the use of censure and science to ensure I am baffled as Yeats by those voices that still speak to Oddysseus but as the bats.

Excerpt of Shadow Recension by Alan Halsey

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and distributed by Radiotopia.

Originally published on April 10th, 2024, enjoy a conversation between Charlie Harding of Switched on Pop and Executive Producer Jason where they talk about what pop-musical acts have sounded like the internet.

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What Does the Internet Sound Like?

• You should listen to Switched on Pop generally, but also here’s the interview they did with 100 gecs.

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

After a confusingly whirlwind week on the AI battlelines, senior producer Hans Buetow seeks the counsel of researcher Dave Karpf to understand what the heck even happened in the past week with all the tweet storms, screeds, panics, and prognostications - is AI going to kill us all in 10 years or not?!?!??

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Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/ for access to extended and bonus segments!

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The World's Most Special Boys Building the Apocalypse

Find Dave Karpf:

• Website
• Bluesky
• Blog
• New book - Vaporware, Inc.: How Silicon Valley Sells the Future to Control the Present

Links:

• Jacob Coxon’s thread (X)
• Dario Amodei’s response (blog)
• Lina Khan’s response (X)
• Sam Alman and Elon Musk’s responses (News18)
• Cal Newport (podcast)
• Kat Tenbarge (Spitfire)
• Ciaran Martin (The Economist)
• Will Knight (Wired)
• How Much of the Internet is Written With AI? (Pew)
• Young Adults in the US Are Increasingly Wary of AI (Pew)
• Half of Americans fear AI could put someone in their household out of work (Reuters)
• Pro-Human Assembly (MSN)
• AI Diplomacy (Politico)

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

The Never Post staff meet to discuss four academic papers on how the internet is getting worse, each from a special edition of the European Journal of Cultural Studies. How is slop like gelatin? In many more ways that you might immediately assume! Tune in to hear about them all!

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Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/ for access to extended and bonus segments!

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• Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voicemail
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Brainrot, AI slop, and the enshittification of the Internet

• Intro
• Georgia,Doing the numbers: The operational aesthetics of AI slop
• Hans,Feed them slop: Alignment, attunement, and the affective lure of slopaganda
• Jason,Degenerative AI: AI slop, brainrot, and the gimmick of generative culture
• Mike,Computational Gallerte: Compressions of culture

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Jesus Christ, my dusty socialist,

“There’s enough sun for everyone,” you state,

your crown chipped like a front tooth

after a bar fight. Behind you a red curtain.

Excerpt of Ephphatha by Spencer Reece

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and distributed by Radiotopia.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

Georgia talks to Matt Sitman, host of the podcast Know Your Enemy, about Pope Leo XIV's recent comments about the algorithm, and why so much of his papacy seems concerned with the cultural impact of AI.

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Become a Never Post member for an ad-free version of the show and all kinds of bonus content

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News Links

• NVIDIA could buy HuggingFace
• HF valued at $4.5 billion
• HF turned down earlier deal
• News on AI doctors from Harvard Health, Futurism,404 Media
• NYT on AI meds ads
• Substack post on fake doctor accounts
• Dangers of mushroom foraging
• CDT on bot traffic online
• Cable faults affect Vietnam's internet
• Pope Leo XIV warns AI could lead to tech domination

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The Pope and AI

• Algorithm could be "subtle form of domination"
• Pope Leo XIV encyclical warns against AI

Find Matt:

• Know Your Enemy

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suck up stork torso

into the jet engine

like a fork in the throat so the engine goes

yolo bogo putt-putt

flashing its famous lights like

teeth tho

excerpt of Day of Being by Joyelle McSweeney

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

Here's the schedule! The stream is here on twitch! Become a member today!

With the help of listener submissions and the insight of experts Drs Casey Fiesler and Alex Hanna, Senior Producer Hans Buetow investigates how people resist the integration of AI into the workplace, why folks might feel hesitant to broadcast that resistance, and why this topic feels so different from just a year ago.

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Become a Never Post member for an ad-free version of the show and all kinds of bonus content

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AI At Work? In This Economy?

• The Luddite Lab (DAIR)
• The Luddite Lab launch stream
• Global Evidence on Gender Gaps and Generative AI Over Time (HBS)

Find Dr. Casey Fiesler:

• Bluesky
• Website
• Casey’s video about AI incentivizing cheating

Find Dr. Alex Hanna:

• Bluesky
• Website

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Of course there are victims in this poem:

victim victim victim victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

victim you are here victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

victim victim victim victim victim

Excerpt of History by Tracy K Smith

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

DISCOUNT for ½ off a yearly membership – offer ends on August 17th, when stream week begins!

Mike talks to security researchers Jan Pennekamp and Johannes Lohmoller about how many academics are allegedly doxxing themselves in the process of publishing their own research, and why it’s so hard to get sensitive, secretive information off the internet after it lands there.

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Tell your pals to take the survey here!

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Become a Never Post member for an ad-free version of the show and all kinds of bonus content

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News Links

• Hbo Max introduces shorts
• Streaming platforms try to beat TikTok at their own game
• France bans social media for teens
• Vietnam proposes social media ban for teens
• Doom is a top influential piece of American culture
• Doom as part of Trump's election strategy
• https://arxiv.org/

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Doxxing Yourself For Science

• Read the paper here
• See Jan and Johannes’ other work here

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

We respond to your questions and comments!

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Become a Never Post member for an ad-free version of the show and all kinds of bonus content

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☎️ Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voice mail
🗣️ Drop us a voice note via airtable
📧 Email us at theneverpost at gmail dot com
🌐 Leave a comment at neverpo.st

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Never Post's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our contributing producer is Meghal Janardan. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show's host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure.

Originally published on April 26th, 2024, enjoy this episode where Mike looks at how the car has become a default setting for vertical, short form video.

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Become a Never Post member for an ad-free version of the show and all kinds of bonus content

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The American Car

• Garlic Naan And Butter Chicken Fountain?! – Tiktok
• David After Dentist – YouTube
• Taco Reacts – Tiktok
• The American Room – Paul Ford, Medium
• It is NOT My day – Tiktok
• forget a rage room, ima just rent out my car so y’all can scream in it – Evelyn, Tiktok
• Shanin Blake – Tiktok
• Dear single parents ~ when I was 18 I got pregnant with my daughter and her dad went to prison right after she was born, so I was on my own. – Shanin Blake, Instagram
• This is our home her name is Nancy 🚐 – Shanin Blake, Instagram
• Good morning! I love living in a mom van!!! – Shanin Blake, Instagram

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Georgia talks with automotive journalist Rory Carroll about the memetic rise of the Renault Twingo, its debut on the racing game Gran Turismo, and what the popularity of this dorky car says about online car culture.

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Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/ for access to extended and bonus segments, and our side shows like “Slow Post”, “Posts from the Field” and “Never Watch”

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The Happiest Car On The Internet

Find Rory:

• Alloy's website
• Bluesky
• Auto Week
• Jalopnik

Cute Car Links:

• What is a Kei car? - Jalopnik
• The Nissan S-Cargo is a Postmodern Masterpiece - Road & Track
• Nissan Figaro

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our contributing producer is Kurt White. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Revving an engine to Steal attention.

Flirting cool furniture with blithe lids Closed.

A tidy splash on a mirror. A Fear

Of belonging an avoidance of Cleaving to Incompletion

As of a flash as of hit by a flash

Or an echo

Of an echo of a speech into stones.

Tone deaf stick lashings who

Spoke, along school railings

Paramount Noise

Excerpt of Stranger, by Cris Cheek

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

Senior producer Hans Buetow and contributing producer Kurt White tackle a new type of post - people making content out of the things they inherit from dead people. They talk with Nikki from Dad’s Vinyl Stash, and speculate about whether or not these new posts are leading to a new way of mourning.

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Become a Never Post member for an ad-free version of the show and all kinds of bonus content

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Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/ for access to extended and bonus segments, and our side shows like “Slow Post”, “Posts from the Field” and “Never Watch”

–

• Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voicemail
• Drop us a voice memo via airtable
• Or email us at theneverpost at gmail dot com

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Links

• Unravelling interview with Nikki (Ep. 46 - Giving the music life)
• Dad’s Vinyl Stash
• Cooking with Congress
• Goodnatured.studio
• Dead Greg’s Recipes
• Soundwaves of Wax
• Anjali Pinto
• Mattie on the Homefront - Hans’ Inheritance Posting podcast

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our contributing producer is Kurt White. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

Producer Audrey talks with Mols Sauter and Erin Kissane about what AI hallucinations actually are.

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Become a Never Post member for an ad-free version of the show and all kinds of bonus content

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• Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voicemail
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Links

• French spies break with Palantir
• Palantir should be stripped of NHS contract
• Chile turned to China for an undersea cable. The U.S. said no
• The Millions of Songs Mashed Into AI-Generated Music
• Google's YouTube settles social media addiction case with teen
• Research shows Australia’s teen social media ban has little impact
• Study on effects of Australian Social Media Minimum Age Act
• Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood YouTube Channel Goes Live
• Little Dot Studios Buys Content Agency Wing
• German ruling says Google is liable for its AI Overviews' false answers
• German court holds Google liable for AI hallucination
• KPMG pulls AI usage report
• EY retracts study after discovering AI hallucinations
• Wikipedia bans AI-generated content in its online encyclopedia
• AI hallucination epidemic

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You Seein What I’m Seein

• Search is over - Techcrunch

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our contributing producer is Kurt White. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

Long and short:

• Memberdrive Streamweek is Aug 17 - 21 at https://twitch.tv/theneverpost
• Sideshow specific feeds are being retired; members will have one feed!
• Once monthly members' only content will include things like Team Chats, WIGOHs, &c, &c

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• Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voicemail
• Drop us a voice memo via airtable
• Or email us at theneverpost at gmail dot com

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• Never Post’s Mike Rugnetta on the creative process and the value of reliable power
• The Earliest Game of the Year Awards

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

Originally published on March 27th, 2024, enjoy this episode where Georgia and guest producer Luis López wonder why there is so much audio online that seems to sound bad on purpose, and decide to give this practice a name: burnt toast audio.

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Become a Never Post member for an ad-free version of the show and all kinds of bonus content

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• Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voicemail
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Burnt Toast Audio

• https://www.tiktok.com/@tiaraskye_
• https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4WXquxJWxG/
• https://www.tiktok.com/@cbc/video/7285762769880714501
• https://www.tiktok.com/@theporktornadoes/video/7179733641092746542
• https://www.tiktok.com/@inf1n1temusic/video/7195244395220749574
• https://www.tiktok.com/@cchiphop/video/7232580386759380267
• https://www.tiktok.com/@epic.cammy1933/video/7348992219698826539
• https://www.tiktok.com/@notamine/video/7347043430738054406
• https://www.tiktok.com/@tiaraskye_/video/7310222966363573537
• https://www.tiktok.com/@tiaraskye_/video/7313244933232676129
• https://www.tiktok.com/@tiaraskye_/video/7173471436479139078
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzzUPZs5l1Y
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-3IV11_ZgA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D-ZO2rGcSA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77sS5IuR0Gs
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2_r4q2imnQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvjQXF5ucO0

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia